Comparison

smalltype vs Igneous

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

smalltype

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Short notes, many times a day, saved as plain .md files in real folders. Open the same folder on your Mac in VS Code, Vim, or any editor. Calm, minimal, and ready for iPhone Duo. smalltype is for your notes. The small ones, the quick ones, the big ones, the unpolished ones. It's a fast, quiet place to type. ## Start No tutorial, no setup screen. Tap New Note and start typing. Leave one empty and it quietly disappears, so you never end up with a pile of blank untitled notes. That's the whole app. ## Yours Every note is a real .md file, sitting right there in the Files app. You can open it, copy it, or back it up yourself, anytime. Delete one and it still goes to Recently Deleted, same as any other file: nothing's gone for good. ## Sync or Don't Keep notes in iCloud Drive to have them on every device. Or keep them On My iPhone, fully local, never leaving your device. Either way, you can switch anytime. ## Visible Markdown Markdown markers stay gently visible as you type. What you see is exactly what's in the file. A bar above the keyboard types the markers for you, with undo and redo a tap away. ## Organize Folders, search, and quick note-making, all from one screen. Nothing to set up first. Put "daily" in a folder's name and new notes inside it get today's date as their name. ## No Catch No ads. No subscription. No tracking. No account, ever. Markdown notes. Yours to keep.

About

Igneous

This app offers a gesture-driven approach to note-taking, allowing users to manage their Markdown files with one-handed navigation. It supports various cloud storage options and integrates features like voice notes, live Markdown rendering, and drawing capabilities.

Highlights
  • One-thumb gesture navigation
  • Plain Markdown file storage
  • iCloud Drive and Files integration
  • Live Markdown rendering
  • Voice note recording and transcription
  • Drawing and sketching canvases
  • Mac and offline synchronization
Features
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Igneous is a notes app you drive with one thumb. On iPhone there's no toolbar at the top of the screen: everything lives in one dock at the bottom, and it moves the way Safari's tab bar does. Your notes are plain Markdown files in a folder you choose — on your device, in iCloud Drive, or anywhere Files can reach — so they open in any other app, today and in twenty years. No account, no database, no analytics. GET ANYWHERE WITHOUT REACHING • Tap the pill in the dock to search every note, like tapping Safari's address bar. • Swipe it sideways to move between open notes, and keep going past the last one for a new note. • Swipe up on it and your open notes spread out as cards. • Swipe in from the left edge for your notebook, and from the right for the Inspector. • Pull down on a note to find a word in it. Hold any button for more. • While you read, the dock folds into a slim pill out of the way. Liquid Glass on iOS 26; solid with Reduce Transparency. • On iPad: a floating notebook pane, a real tab bar, and as many windows as Stage Manager will hold. CAPTURE THE MOMENT • Press the Action Button, a Lock Screen widget or a Control Center tile and you're typing in a new note — even from a closed app. • Record a voice note from the Action Button, Siri, the app icon or the note you're in. Igneous transcribes it on your device while you talk, shows the words on the Lock Screen, and saves the audio and transcript into today's note or a note of its own. • Copy a voice note — recording and transcript together — and paste it into Messages, Mail or another note. WRITE IN MARKDOWN, SEE IT BEAUTIFULLY • A live editor that renders headings, lists, tasks, tables, callouts, highlights, maths and diagrams as you type, while the file stays plain text. • A formatting bar just above the keyboard, and Writing Tools that keep your links and structure intact. • Wikilinks, embeds, backlinks, tags and a graph of how your notes connect. • Search every note instantly, including handwriting on your canvases. • Daily notes, a calendar, tasks gathered from every note, templates and a board view. DRAW WHEN WORDS WON'T DO • Canvases for sketches and diagrams, with Apple Pencil on iPad, beside cards and links to your notes. • Opens JSON Canvas and Excalidraw drawings. WORKS WITH YOUR MAC — AND OFFLINE • Keep a notebook in iCloud Drive ▸ Igneous and it's on all your devices. • Or pair with Igneous on your Mac over your own network: the phone keeps a full offline copy and sends its edits when it's back. Changes to different lines are combined, and if you both changed the same words, both versions are kept. Drawings merge shape by shape. • Nothing ever passes through a server of ours — there isn't one. SHORTCUTS, SIRI AND WIDGETS • Actions for new notes, today's note, tasks, search and voice notes, ready for Shortcuts and Siri. • Home Screen widgets with buttons you choose, Lock Screen widgets, Control Center controls, Focus filters and Live Activities. YOUR NOTES, YOUR FILES Igneous reads Obsidian-flavoured Markdown as written and never adds anything you didn't ask for. Point it at the vault you already keep.

Screenshots

smalltype4 screens
Igneous4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: smalltype at none against Igneous's 3. Igneous's advantage is update cadence (every 2 days vs every 5 days) and device support (3 vs 1). On price and ads there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Igneous sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. smalltype asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

smalltype ships an update every 5 days, Igneous every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on October 25, 2026 and October 26, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
smalltype versus Igneous: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParametersmalltypeIgneous
PriceFreeFree
Rating—4.8 (4 ratings) — better
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings—4 — better
Update frequencyEvery 5 daysEvery 2 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
Monetization—Free
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad, Mac — better
Requires iOS26.017.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size8 MB46 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperHerman HaidinJASON RANDALL DORFMAN

In-app purchases

None

smalltype

No in-app purchases

3 purchases

Igneous

One-time3
  • Small Tip$9.99
  • Medium Tip$24.99
  • Large Tip$49.99

Questions

Is smalltype free?
smalltype is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Igneous free?
Igneous is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do smalltype or Igneous have ads?
Neither smalltype nor Igneous shows ads.
Which is updated more often, smalltype or Igneous?
smalltype ships an update every 5 days, and Igneous every 2 days. Most recently, smalltype was updated on October 25, 2026 and Igneous on October 26, 2026.

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